


Warm

by WahlBuilder



Category: The Technomancer (Video Game)
Genre: Area Man Too Stubborn To Take Care Of Himself, Caring, Comfort, Comfort Food, Fluff, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 10:04:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17363948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder
Summary: Viktor works late — and has a visitor who doesn't take his shit.





	Warm

Viktor likes working late. So late that everyone else is gone.

He doesn’t like when his subordinates stay late. Of course, there are days, weeks when they all have to, but when it’s routine work, he threatens action against anyone who doesn’t have enough rest and sleep. He needs them fit. Emergency might arise at any time.

To tentative inquiries about himself he replies that they should do as he says, not as he does.

In the dome, time is an issue of timekeeping; time is trapped in timepieces, subdued, arrested with precise force. The Seekers say that in small doses sunlight is needed for one’s health, and that dimming lights in the evening and using warmer lamps goes to treat many sleep disorders.

Viktor doesn’t have any sleeping disorders. He is simply used to working at night.

Vory often work at night.

(Anton has always been bad at getting up in the morning…)

A hard, long day allows one to exhaust oneself so that the only thing to do after work is to fall on the cot and slip into unconsciousness. This way, there are usually no dreams, only oblivion.

To keep with recommendations, he has turned off the bright overhead lights, writing by his warm desk lamp.

Something clangs in the hall.

Must be the night guard shift…

His stylus hovers over the datapad. Professional paranoia, honed and nurtured throughout the decades, reminds him that the night shift knows he usually stays late and they wouldn’t bother him.

His paranoia reminds him he has locked the hall with his personal key sequence, and the system would alert him of anyone unlocking, or trying to unlock it.

He glances at the security logs.

Nothing.

He knows that the light of the desk lamp is small enough that it wouldn’t reach the door and isn’t visible in the seams between the door and the frame from the outside.

He considers the hall. Open plan, two rows of desks (six in each row), each with a set of three drawers and a working station (powered down now). Another desk at the wall farthest from the door to Viktor’s office. Two-story high ceiling. There are four cameras, covering seemingly each centimeter of space — but there _are_ blind spots if attention of the guard on the monitor duty is diverted.

(Viktor wouldn’t have been a good Director if he hadn’t known how to break into his own headquarters.)

There are vent shafts just under the ceiling — but they are very narrow, and a year ago they’ve been fitted with a laser grid.

There is a panel on the wall, however, no different from others in the hall, and in no way highlighted from the maintenance passage hidden behind it — but if one knows it is there, and knows how to press on it…

(Viktor wouldn’t have been a good Director if he hadn’t ensured he could break into his own headquarters.)

He opens a drawer — very quietly — and takes out his combat knife. A nailgun would do more harm than good in close quarters.

He steps silently to the door, presses the keypad. It slides open — slowly, so as not to disrupt the air in the hall and alert the intruders. Standing with his back to the wall, Viktor reaches into the groove along the frame and presses a button. The hall goes dark and Viktor is already moving in, knife at the ready…

“Vitya, turn the lights back on, please, I’m going to break my fucking leg.”

There are thin lumostrips running at the perimeter of the hall, giving Viktor just enough light to locate the guest.

He has to swallow several times before he can speak. “Mr. Rogue. What are you doing here?”

Anton is standing by the farthest desk — but it feels like he’s closer. It’s the dark, making Anton’s voice appear… right here.

And Viktor has just replied to him, betraying his position.

And there is the light of his desk, outlining him.

Viktor sighs and reached to the frame, presses the button again and closes his eyes against the lights of the hall.

“Thanks.”

He stands straight, not sheathing the knife. But doesn’t look at Anton. His eyes feel like they are full of sand. “Why are you here? _How_ are you here?”

Anton’s steps are silent. He can be quiet when he wants to — but Viktor feels him moving close.

He always feels Anton.

He opens his eyes slowly.

Anton is wearing the black jacket and a white shirt — though no tie. Perched on a desk closest to Viktor.

Viktor suppresses the urge to press his back to the wall, to step back into his office and lock the door.

“You look exactly like you might be hallucinating me,” Anton says. His eyes searching Viktor’s face — so Viktor makes sure his face betrays nothing.

(He remembers: Anton’s voice, trembling, rough, demanding: “Vik? What do you see there, Vik?”

“Nothing,” he whispered — and there was that _thing_ behind Anton, that _thing_ , that thing, reaching out, and his throat closed on a scream, and he couldn’t, he’d beg for it to not hurt Tosha, he’d do _anything_ …)

“You are not hallucinating me, Vitya,” Anton says quietly. “I simply have the master sequence.”

Viktor blinks away the memory.

He sheathes his knife and turns his back to Anton. “I don’t have time for this. Whatever this is.” He needs to finish work, although now he doubts he’d be able to focus.

He reaches up to rub his itching eyes — but his hand is caught. “Of course you don’t have time for _this_.” And a box is pushed into his hands.

It is warm and covered with a green lid with a pattern of tomatoes on it. Viktor looks at Anton, hoping the man would disappear just from his frown. “Mr. Rogue.”

Anton looks back, apparently unimpressed by his frown. “If you call me that once more, I will punch you. Come on, I know what bland shit they have in the cafeteria here.” He walks past Viktor right into his office, to the desk, like he owns the place.

Viktor resists the urge to open the box. It’s warming his fingers.

“It’s diced and roasted mole meat,” Anton calls, running his fingers over the desktop — and Viktor admonishes himself for not remembering whether he locked the datapad. Anton perches on the desk, and looks at him across the office — outlined by the lamplight, broad and… “With silky eggplant chunks and roasted peanuts. Topped with spicy tomato sauce.”

Viktor has had the last meal four hours ago. It was… He doesn’t remember what it was. It’s not _important_.

“You know that one of the heating stoves in your cafeteria doesn’t work?” Anton crosses his arms on his chest.

Anton shouldn’t be here. He has a long blade on his hip, and a nailgun strapped to his thigh, and… He’s looking at Viktor.

“I don’t need this,” Viktor forces himself to say.

The box is arming his fingers.

Anton shrugs. “Then throw it out.”

Viktor’s fingers tighten on the box. Anton is looking straight at him, not blinking.

Anton is playing a game. He always is.

Viktor should throw it out, to make a point, should kick Anton out, should arrest him, should…

(He remembers: hunger so terrible he throws up from a single drink of water, twisting his insides, he is ready to do anything, _anything_ at all…)

He opens the box. The aroma that wafts out is… He swallows and looks at the contents. So _colorful_ , red and purple, and creamy white.

He goes over to the small couch, hears a smile in Anton’s words, “I’ll bring a fork.”

He brings a fork and two steaming tea mugs, and when Viktor is through with the roast, Anton takes the empty box out of his hands and replaces it with a mug (white, with the Abundance crest slightly out of shape). Then Anton pulls a rustling bag out of his jacket, and Viktor… He has to hold onto the mug tight, even though it’s burning his fingers.

Anton opens the bag — and here they are, bright orange crescents.

They share tea and candied oranges in silence, sitting on the low, tiny couch side by side, thighs touching, the lamp on the desk the only source of light (because along the way, when Viktor was too distracted, Anton has turned the lights in the hall off).

Viktor holds the now empty mug — he doesn’t want to put it down on the floor, the only place where he can put it. It’s still warm.

He is warm.

And Anton, by his side, is warm, too, and Viktor feels Anton looking at him.

“Vitya?”

He looks at Anton. The half-light changes colors, but he knows all the shades of Anton’s eyes. “Yes?”

“Let’s go to my place.”

Anton has a smooth voice, with a great range of tones he has cultivated carefully — but now, now, it sounds soft.

“Mine is closer.” Not a place, really. A small room on the fifth floor with an adjacent bathroom with a shower. He wouldn’t be able to spread his arms across it without touching the walls.

The dormitories have bigger quarters, whole apartments for those workers who need them — but Viktor… After all, he doesn’t have a family. He doesn’t need much, just a place to fall into oblivion after a long day.

Anton’s mouth twists. He has a beautiful mouth. “It’s not a place, it’s a disgrace, Vitya.” Anton’s hand slides up his chest (over the armor), up his neck (over the brace), round to the nape, pressing him down, pressing him close.

And he goes down, and goes close, kissing color off Anton’s lips. “To your place, then.”

**Author's Note:**

> Tall Trash Man cared for by Short Trash Goblin.


End file.
